


we dream in the dark (for the most part)

by callunavulgari



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: F/F, F/M, Family Secrets, Mages, Other, POV Second Person, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-22
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-06-03 18:03:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6620776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callunavulgari/pseuds/callunavulgari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Will it go away?” Bethany asks, her voice quiet as a whisper.</p><p>You take a long moment to answer, head bowed.</p><p>“No, it doesn’t go away,” you tell her quietly as she settles. She isn’t crying, but her body is trembling. The skin of her temple under your lips tastes of salt and sweat. You reach for her hand and squeeze, just the once, very gently. “But it isn’t so bad when you have someone to walk with you.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	we dream in the dark (for the most part)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kaikamahine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaikamahine/gifts).



> Can be read as either male or female Hawke, because I got to realizing I was going to write it in second person before I decided I might as well leave it up for interpretation.

Bethany doesn’t start showing the signs until she is nearly thirteen years old.

It’s late — very late — by your reckoning. You’ve had it in you since you were very young. Father used to take long walks with you in the Fade, his callused hand in yours more of a comfort than the ready and waiting magic lurking beneath his skin. When you were a little older than that, he’d taught you spells. Control. Patience. His lessons lasted long into the night, long enough that mother would give him foul looks when you yawned into your porridge the next morning morning, her arms crossed over her swollen belly.

He dies when the twins are a year old. You don’t know how — mother won’t tell you, thinks that you aren’t old enough, that you can’t handle it  — but you know the truth. You know that it was because of what he was. What you are. The magic sleeping just beneath your skin isn’t to be used or spoken of. 

So you make it sleep. It hurts. But mother smiles more.

Bethany walks in the Fade for the first time a week after she gets her first blood, and when she wakes, clawing the sheets and screaming loud enough to wake the folks in the next farm over, you are the first at her side. You shush her, arms wrapped around her too skinny body, and when mother appears at the door, you wave her off. 

“Just a nightmare,” you murmur, Bethany already quieting in the cage of your arms.

Your mother shifts, her nightgown clinging to her calves. “Was it—”

Your smile goes steely. “Just a nightmare.”

Mother goes, and when you glance back down at your sister, she is watching you with dark, fear-bright eyes. Her nightgown sticks to her narrow frame, twisted around her thighs. You smooth the fabric down for her, hand lingering on her bare knee. You pat it, sighing deeply.

“Will it go away?” she asks, her voice quiet as a whisper.

You take a long moment to answer, head bowed.

“No,” you say at long last. You watch her eyes well up with tears, how her nose crinkles as she tries to hold them back. Her throat is swollen, clogged with emotion, you know, because yours did the same when your father told you.

You swallow, shifting your bodies until you can fit yourself around her. You pretend that your body is a cage — that if someone or something tries to reach for her now they’ll have to shatter your limbs to do so. You breathe a sigh into the sweat-damp hair under your nose, and kiss the top of her head. 

“It doesn’t go away,” you tell her quietly as she settles. She isn’t crying, but her body is trembling. The skin of her temple under your lips tastes of salt and sweat. You reach for her hand and squeeze, just the once, very gently. “But it isn’t so bad when you have someone to walk with you.”

“You won’t leave me, will you?” she asks tremulously, her heart galloping in her chest. 

“No,” you sigh, stroking her hair away from her sweaty brow. “I won’t.”

.

Years pass.

There are sunlit afternoons where you teach her the things that your father couldn’t. She smiles like the sunshine the first time she calls fire, trailing it between both hands like a ribbon instead of a flame.

She kisses you in the shadows when mother is out. When Carver is with the girl three farms over. Her arms cage you in, strong and unyielding, and she presses in until you yield.

Because this secret, you think, burying your nose in her hair as she explores your throat and collarbone with soft lips, is just like the other one you hold between you. Your magic — her magic, is not to be seen or spoken of. 

And neither is this. 

The taste of her, the feel of her body against yours, is yours and hers alone. 

(You wonder, sometimes, if they’d kill you for this secret too. If they’d string you up like they strung up your father — not for the magic, but for this, this secret love of yours.)

And at night, you sleep, and you walk together.

Another year passes.

There is a blight. An escape. An ogre.

And in the end, you press your nose to her hair, your nostrils clogged with the smell of dust and blood, and your heart thumps unevenly in your chest.

“You weren’t supposed to leave me either,” you whisper, too quiet for mother or Carver to hear. You touch your lips to her temple, her cheek, her brow. She tastes of dust. 

Then you get to your feet, because if you don’t, Carver will drive you away himself. 

That night, when you sleep, you walk alone.


End file.
